hello from the cnn world hurrica headquarters, i'm brooke baldwin welcoming our viewers in the united states and all around the

world. this hour across so much of the east, new england, the snow is coming down. look at these pictures, more than 300,000 homes and businesses have no power. that is more than half the total across the region. half a million customers scattered across nine states. more than half a foot and a half of snow already fallen in parts of massachusetts. and it keeps coming down. we'll take you live to boston in a moment. look at this, new york, tough to see even the buildings here. this is the worst of the storm, hitting in these predawn hours. just a short time ago. we have been telling you here about this fatality. we learned a 74-year-old man died after he was hit by a car that apparently lost control on a snowy road in poughkeepsie. and across the state of new york, a state of emergency is in place. rail service, look at this, no cabs. rail service suspended from manhattan to upstate. that's just new york. in rhode island, snow has been

stacking up. as fast as 3 inches an hour there. up to 2 feet of snow is predicted along with winds possibly topping 60 miles per hour. as i mentioned, i'm back in the cnn weather center where we're watching the snow storm. we and karen mcginnis, producers here watching the storm, making sure they have the most up to date information with you. we're live with you throughout the night with continuous coverage on conditions. we have a crew spanned out to bring you the pictures and stories, including there she is on the far left, indra petersons in boston, ali velshi, well, ali is not there, but that's his shot. ali velshi in cape cod for us. in new york, alison kosik, and gary tuchman on staten island. let's begin in boston. logan airport measured one wind gust 76 miles per hour. that's two above hurricane

strength. let's go to meteorologist and self-proclaimed weather geek, indra petersons, who has been in the snow for the better part of many hours already. are you frozen to your core yet? >> no, because you have no idea how many layers i have on. it would probably take me five minutes to list the amount of layers. i'm all good. better be safe than sorry. i want to show you how much snow we have. we're still seeing about nine inches. we're under the foot mark still. every time i walk out of the truck and i stand out here, i go, it's not that bad. then a couple seconds later, this huge gust comes by. we're talking 50, 60, 70-mile-per-hour gusts. logan airport is 2 miles away. we're pretty much standing right here, so picture those ice crystals smacking you in the face. i keep trying to han on to nigh anemometer. it measures the wind, and i'm like, okay, not a bisg deal, bu

i'm getting pelted in my eye balls with ice. so i'm trying to get you a strong gust, but it's tough out there. we're in the thick of this, talking 1 to 2 inchls of snow per hour, some points, 4 to 6 inches an hour. i want to pan to the right a little bit. you can see right in front of the light, this is heavy snow. visibility at times has gone down below a quarter of a mile. we'll continue to see moderate to heavy snowfall here for the next few hours, even all through tomorrow. the big thing here though, temperatures in the teens. you adin the strong winds we're talking ability, the windchill is dropping to negative 1 degrees. think about that, and now imagine being here without power. that is what so many people are dealing with at this hour. in boston, excuse me, in massachusetts, 350,000 without power right now. 500,000 people without power in the northeast. we mentioned the plymouth nuclear plant. they lost power as well. they're on generators, but 90%

of the area around them is without power as a result. cold and windy. a long ways to go. even once the bands kick out of here, we could potentially see some of the record snowfall, bument we'll be dealing with the wind blowing the snow around. >> as you point out, the power outages, right? so we're saying half a million in the region. these are customers. this isn't necessarily people. these are homes. that number, it's a huge, huge number when you try to really wrap your arms around it. i'm glad it's just you and another tv crew and no one else really getting pelted in your eyeballs. thank you for taking one for the team. we'll come back for you for us in boston. want to keep this moving because i want to take you to new york and talk about travel because the blizzard obviously making travel very difficult for a lot of people. down right impossible, actually, for others. the new york knicks, for example, basketball team, stuck tonight in minneapolis because they obviously couldn't get back into town. the san antonio spurs as well. they're delaying a trip to new york. they're hanging out tonight in

detroit, hopefully heading to new york tomorrow. this is what we're hearing from their team. so pro sports, pro athletes being affected. the brooklyn nets are taking a train instead of a plane back to new york after playing in washington, d.c. so just an example of how many people, the groups of people affected by all of this. alison, let me go back to you on manhattan, a place, friday night at this time, look, people are always out on the streets, you see cabs. not so much right now, huh? >> new york city, right? the city that never sleeps. this is a city that is in the middle of a deep slumber. when was the last time you saw the streets practically empty. look at the circle, columbus circle, practically empty. a couple cabs, maybe a snow plow if you're lucky, maybe a city bus. empty. it's like a white christmas today. isn't it? a winter wonderland. it is cold, i'll tell you that, but it's snowing and it's a quiet snow. not much wind going on.

so really kind of a calm overhang on this evening in the middle of the night. the snow, though, is continuing to pile up. what i find interesting, though, is i really haven't seen many snow plows go by and the city has promised they were on patrol as of 7:00 tonight. perhaps they're in the boroughs in the neighborhoods making their way through. one interesting difference to this year, though, different from the blizzard that hit here in 2010, the city's kind of learned about it, learned from its mistakes, they have got kind of, brooke, a gps tracker of where the snow plows are. so you can actually go online and see when a snow plow has been down your street here in manhattan and the four boroughs, which i think is kind of interesting, especially since the city got a lot of heat in 2010 when it was hit with 20 inches of snow, and the city was not out ahead of it. very different story this time around. >> now you can hop online and see precisely where those plows

are. and if they're coming to a neighborhood near you. i remember that in 2010, a lot of very furious new yorkers. thank you. and i want now to take you to a place that was hit very, very hard by superstorm sandy not too long ago. this was end of october. staten island. tonight, this blizzard has a lot of esthespeople who are still reeling from that storm very much so on edge, and left feeling unprepared. scott mcgraph lost the first floor to his home because of sandy. he is rebuilding and he's bracing for what is ahead. >> well, everybody has fear, you know. you have seen the gas lines this afternoon. people want to run to the gas station, running out of gas because people were getting their generators full, their cars full because you know what? it was a hard hit. if this tide is high like they're expecting and the high winds, we're in for a long night. >> gary tuchman is in staten island right now. and gary, at least it appears that the snow isn't falling,

hopefully the people can catch a little bit of a break. >> well, that's right, brooke. it was pretty much 100 days ago that hurricane sandy hit the northeastern united states. and no one was hit worst than the people of staten island. that's why here in staten island, there may have been more anxiety about this blizzard than anywhere else. so far here, compared to rhode island, connecticut, massachusetts, not as bad. when i did come here today to this particular street, it was completely green. the streets were blue, the grass was green, and there's been a lot of snow, but it's not a ton of snow and there haven't been a ton of winds. this is the very same street we did live reports on when the hurricane came here. this street was devastated. for example here, you can still see rubble from one of the hundreds of houses destroyed here in staten island. next door is another house that was heavily damaged. the family that lives there is in the process of rebuilding it. they were hoping to move in this weekend. not so sure because of the heavy

snow. but that gives you an idea of what's going on here. this entire street either damaged or destroyed houses. 5% of the population of new york city lives here in staten island. 475,000 people in a city of more than 8 million, yet more than half of the people who died in new york, died in staten island. 23 people killed in staten island from hurricane sandy. behind us, this tent has been here now for months. private citizen decided to build the tent there. people have donated food every day. homeless people, still about 1400 homeless people here in staten island, come to this tent for meals. even today when the snow starting coming, people were in there having meals. one thing i want to tell you is we actually had a storm-related injury among the cnn people here today. our cnn engineer was going inside his suv. he raised up the suv and there was so much snow, it fell on top of his head. he had six stitches in his head, and albert is back at work, even

with six stitches in your head. >> i was wondering why i'm looking at you live. i heard about this. so he's working with his six stitches to make sure we get you on tv? >> i'm going to give you a shot of the van where this happened. okay. basically, a van that looks like this. what happened to albert is he raised this up and there was so much snow on it, it came down and the corner of it hit him in the head, and he was gushing blood. we took him to the hospital. i give a shout-out to the staten island university hospital. within 15 minutes, he's in the hospital, and out with six stitches in his head. he's doing okay. we're happy to say. >> i'm so glad to say it, albert, we're thinking about you, and thank you for hanging in there and helping us be on tv at 2:00 in the morning. before i let you go, there was a picture on your twitter page of a christmas tree. tell me about that. >> right, let me show it to you, brooke. i can show it to you. can we see -- good enough light to see this? i'm going to run over there.

this christmas tree was lying down earlier today. it was blown over by the wind, and some neighborhood residents came pack and put it right back up here. this is a christmas tree that has basically been here for, you know, since the beginning of december, and it still stands here today, and people thought it epitomized the spirit of the neighborhood. they wanted to leave the christmas tree up on this difficult day for the people of staten island and the people of the northeastern united states. >> how about that? gary tuchman, thank you for sharing that. thinking about all those people, obviously, hopefully it's not as bad for them, although we have seen for so many people in new england. thank you, gary. now let's talk to karen. chad myers has gone to bed. i don't know, do i say good morning, good evening, to you? >> it blurs. >> we're so glad we're on the air because it's such an important story. we know of the one fatality in pukimsy, new york. a couple people have been trapped on the long island expressway. tell me -- >> what's going on?

all right, the storm system came together, and it has already produced not record amounts of snowfall in places that were kind of in that bull's eye, right around boston. that's where we were looking at perhaps what would be the heaviest amounts that would rival 1978. that's kind of the benchmark for everything now going forward. >> was that 27.5? >> 27.1, i believe. so you know, you can -- there's a little wiggle room in there, but a lot of the snow areas across boston that we have seen right now, between 20 and around 25 inches. now, brooke, it is beginning to taper off just a little bit. as soon as i say that, that doesn't mean you can go outside, have a great time. that's just not going to happen, but there's a band that moved through that was heavy wave in the last couple hours. that same wave associated with this storm is going to move off the coast, so they'll be on the back side of this, so you might get another kind of heavy burst that comes up within the next hour or so. >> define heavy burst? >> we could see the snowfall

rates of maybe 2, possibly 3 inches an hour. those are significant. 1 or 2 inches, that's important. 2 to 3 inches in a storm like this one is exasperating. it will stymie the roads, as we well know. the highways, the airways, i looked at some fascinating information regarding the boston airport. they have supersnow removers. >> what is that? >> it's kind of a high volume snow removal system. they really need to get this transportation going. they don't want to do it willy-nilly. they want to make sure everything is safe. they get these snow removal machines out there and just blast it time after time after time again. and once they do that, they have to make sure that even at that point, the airplanes have enough friction that they can land safely. so they have a friction tester. so they'll keep trying to remove all of the snowfall in case you have plans to go to the airports that have been shut down.

so they're continuing to do this as the snow progresses. they're still removing the snowfall. the wind is blowing around. you can imagine how difficult this is. the visibility is only about a half a mile, but they're going to see as this begins to taper off, so maybe we'll start to see some movement with the airlines and the international airports. >> she's hoping, a lot of people are hoping, and as we continue to cover this, we want to dip in since we can. this is providence, rhode island. their local affiliate coverage, wj, ar. we'll get back to them, but we want to be able to see some ofthies reporters in the field, as they have many eyes and ears on the ground as well. karen, thank you. we'll come back here in just a moment and we'll head back out to the beach, to cape cod. cnn's ali velshi, who has been pelted by this hailish snow that has been falling. we'll talk about that and a whole lot more. special coverage of the northeast blizzard on cnn overnight. stay with me. [ female announcer ] today, jason is here

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east coast time. looking at this blizzard. tracking this punishing winter storm. ali velshi has been out in this for hours and hours for us from cape cod, the town of dennis port. this is the eastern most point of massachusetts. ali, we have been talking a lot about the wind. the snow pelting you. what about those flickering lights? tell me about the power

situation on the cape. >> they're back on. and dennis port, but they're off for many, many hundreds of thousands of customers in massachusetts. that's going to be the problem as people wake up in a few hours. they might be waking up into cold houses. it is cold. i will say the wind has died down. it does feel like we're on the back side of the storm. it's pelting me right now. we have a gust coming through, buthere are moments where i don't even feel it. and frankly, as you can see, we have been talking for a couple hours. i can stand up straight and talk to you, which i wasn't able to do earlier. i was hunched down or doing this. there's still gusts coming through, but we're definitely on the back end. there's still a lot of precipitation. you can see it, it's still those icy pellets, but the truth is it's lighter than it was before. there's less accumulation. the problem now is going to be even if we're at the back end of this thing, even if there's just a few more inches of snow to come, that could be the few inches that takes down the branch that takes down the power line that puts more people out of power. until there's no wind, you're

not getting guys in buckets who are repairing that. more people are going to end up without power overnight, and it is cold. it's not all that cold, the actual temperature, but there's enough wind that it's making it particularly cold, and there's still a travel ban in effect here in massachusetts, in connecticut, and in rhode island. so you can't get around. so there's, you know, we're at the back end. i don't think it's going to get substantially worse. but it doesn't mean it's not going to get worse. if you have power now, you may lose it. it's best to take precautions. the coast of cape cod, i'm at the southern side. i'm about two thirds of the way east. go further east and get to chatham. that northeast coast of cape cod was also getting hit hard. we don't have a real sense of how badly cape cod has been hit overall. about quaquaa quarter million p are wintering on cape cod right now. these are full-year residents. it has been hit hard. it probably accounts for a fair number of people in massachusetts. boston has been hit hard.

the power outages are fairly well concentrated on the cape cod side of things. i can't stand and talk to u, so it looks like over the course of the next few hours, we'll have a little less of this coming on. >> i can hear and sort of see it's dark behind you, the waves crashing behind you. there were sort of initial fears about flooding issues although chad seemed to put some of that to bed. what kind of surge, if anything, are you seeing? >> well, nothing, actually, which is interesting. whoa, a little bit of ice there. i tell you, right around here was where high tide hit at about 9:45, 10:00. and this is a little -- a few feet higher than yesterday's high tide, which was over here. so really, we got nothing extra, and soon as the tide receded, there was some fear as the storm hit, which was probably about an hour and a half ago or two hours ago when chad said it got to the low pressure system got as close to me as it was going to get, the water was far enough out that there did not seem to be an

impact. again, cape cod is a big place, and flood warnings were in place for much of massachusetts, not just cape cod. so i don't know what the story is in other places. in the northeast coast, from chatham northwest, to that, you know that one part of the triangle of cape cod. that was perhaps in more danger of flooding, but we do not have reports of that at the moment. at the moment, it does feel like we may have missed the worst of that, but we have to wait until we get more reports in once daylight starts in a few hours. >> ali velshi, we thank you for staying up with us here in the middle of the night, getting hit by the wind and the snow. thank you, ali velshi. on the cape, and really, across massachusetts, as ali was pointing out, talking about the power outages. more than 300,000 homes so far, and businesses, i should point out, in the dark. so on the phone with me right now is tommy, calling in from fall river, about 50 miles south of boston, and tommy, full disclosure, your son kevin works

here at cnn. he was supposed to be coming to visit you this weekend. according to the travel issues, they had other plans, so he's stuck working at cnn with the rest of us. how are you doing? >> all right. how are you? >> doing okay. perhaps better than you. i hear you guys don't have power. when did the power go off? >> we dropped power about 9:00. it dropped off. it dropped off sporadically. it kept bouncing on and off for about 45 minutes to an hour. it's been holding steady. that was probably around 10:00, 9:30. >> what does it look like out your window? >> it's getting quite calm. the winds have died down quite a bit, and it's -- it's just flurries at this point. >> were you around during the '78 storm? you were born and raised massachusetts? >> yes, i was. >> tell me, how did that compare to what you're seeing today? >> unless i was a lot shorter back then, to me, that was a horrible storm.

much worse than what i'm looking at, as i look in my driveway, '78 seemed to be a heck of a lot worse. >> what are people talking about? were people worried? you hear people talk about hearty new englanders and this is judge a huge storm people are used to weathering. what kinds of things were you hearing from folks? >> they kept making that comparison to '78. i suppose the majority of people don't even remember what '78 was like. you know, brooke, that typical thing where everybody is rushing to the market and they close the schools and close the roads. just like i think i saw mayor menino, he said, i think they made everybody stay home today in boston. it's kind of the usual hype that has kind of been the standard for the last five years, i guess. >> so what do you do the next couple days here as the snow is going to be out and about on the streets and hopefully plowed? >> i had a son coming home from

atlanta. he was going to shovel for me. >> i guess not. >> apparently the wife will have to do that. >> thank you for hopping on the phone, and good luck to both of you this weekend here as you weather this with so many other people in massachusetts and the rest of new england. you know, as we talk about this storm, we talk about travel issues. some people having a little fun, though. hey, bars were getting out not too long ago. we have pretty awesome video of a snow ball fight. it happened. that's coming up next. [fight bell: ding, ding] how many here are google users? what if i was to tell you that you would actually like bing way more than google when it came to the results? prove it. let's look up some taco places. i like the left side. yeah? okay, do we need to find out what the waves are like down at the beach? what side do you like better? i like the results on the right. i'm gonna go with the one on the left. oh! bing won! people prefer bing over google for the web's top searches. don't believe it? go to bingiton.com and see what you're missing.

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hopefully part of at least good news catching a bit of a break with the storm, hitting over the weekend. and that means a lot of people were out on a friday night, maybe imbiding. maybe tossing some snowballs. julian cummings is one of our producers who has been out and about taking video on the roads of boston. this is what he found. >> looking at an impromptu snowball fight. started off with probably about ten people. i guess the bars are getting out here and everybody is rushing down the street, running through. the plows broke it up and the fire department broke it um, and their were serenaded with stons of snowballs as well. >> serenaded by snowballs. i see a car in the picture.

i know you have been driving around. when we were talking earlier this afternoon, we know the governor of massachusetts, deval patrick, enforced this travel ban. you couldn't be on the roads after 4:00 in the afternoon. governor dan malloy did the same thing in connecticut. why am i seeing cars? >> there are basically a few cars here and there, but they're usually following emergency vehicles, plows, or people with plows of their own, pickup trucks helping out. for the most part, other than vehicles like ours, we are exempt because we're media, but people are not hitting the roads. we have been out here since 2:00 p.m., and it's getting really bad. pure wite-out conditions. we're taking it very, very slow, being careful out here. >> we are still looking at this snowball fight. it looks to be almost one, two dozen people out as the bars are letting out. this will be interesting as we will be doing this overnight as more and more bars continue to dump out folks who are probably just having their own blizzard

parties. >> julian cummings and a lot of college kids in the streets in boston. when we come back, we'll take you back live to boston as it's really coming down. live pictures. indra petersons waiting for the shot. we're going to talk to indra about the wind and how much of this really has already come down. back after this. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all in one place. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 introducing schwab etf onesource™. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 it's one source with the most commission-free etfs. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 one source with etfs from leading providers tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and extensive coverage of major asset classes... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all brought to you by one firm tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 with comprehensive education, tools and personal guidance tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 to help you find etfs that may be right for you. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 schwab etf onesource-- tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 for the most tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 commission-free etfs, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 you only need one source and one place. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 start trading commission-free with schwab etf onesource.

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like i could stay away. you know i can't do this without you. you'll never have to. you're always there for me. shh! i'll get you a rental car. i could also use an umbrella. fall in love with progressive's claims service. right now, up to 50 million americans are feeling the brunt of this blizzard as it's plowing across much of the northeast and new england right now at 2:30 in the morning. massachusetts, 18 inches of snow in some places. more than 300,000 homes and businesses without power. that accounts for more than half the power outage here. big picture, 530,000 customers in the dark across the region. in new york, the worst of the storm hitting in these predawn hours. just a short time ago. we learned about the 74-year-old man, he was out walking.

in the snow, he was killed by a young woman driving a car. it was on a snowy road in poughkeepsie. a state of emergency is in place across the state. rail service has been suspended from manhattan to upstate, and i want to go back to boston. back to indra petersons. indra, i'm hearing from my producers as they have been watching your shot that it's really, really started to come down now. >> you know, it is starting to come down a little heavier. the gusts -- i was going to say, have kind of calmed down. we're not seeing too many of the strong gusts i was seeing a couple hours ago. i'm going to try to run and knock on wood just for that. >> i did it for you. >> we'll be talking about snowfall rates. snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches an hour, even 3 to 4 inches an hour. we have been seeing that. visibility keep switching from about a half a mile to less.

there were two storms that now have merged. there was a time we were watching the models. were these guys going to merge? the european model said by last sunday that these were going to merge. we're seeing the low off the coastline. we had all this warm moist air from the storms produced in atlanta just a few days ago. that merged with the cold arctic air producing lake effect snow after lake effect snow. you put those two together and we get this coastal bomb we're dealing with is, there nor'easter with nonstop winds kicking on shore. we're pulling up all of the moisture out of the ocean, mixing it with the cold air. this is what you get. this is the result here. you have heavy snow, right now, right here next to my yardstick, about 9 inches of snow. not too much accumulate, which is really strange because the snow hasn't stopped. i have been standthing right here. i keep waiting for it to get higher. we're in the middle of this. some of the bands have gone farther inland. that's one explanation why we're not getting as much in this

spot. we still need to get on the back side of this. with that, we have round two on its way. by now means should this be the measure of what is to come. once the storm pushes out of here, by tomorrow afternoon, we'll still be dealing with the winds. logan airport, 76-mile-per-hour wind. that's above hurricane force. that's only two miles uz way from here. you don't want to get comfortab comfortable, right? >> it's tough, for sure. indra petersons, thank you. let me take you straight to gary tuchman as we take you to staten island. what do you have there? >> well, brooke, we've been here all day and so have the new york city police. the reason they have been here all day is this is a neighborhood that still hasn't gotten on its feet since hurricane sandy. hurricane sandy a little over three months ago. this was the epicenter. 23 people killed here in staten island from hurricane sandy. hundreds of homes were destroyed or damaged. there are still 1500 people who

are homeless, and people were very anxious about this blizzard coming. there's been precipitation here for 19 hours now, in staten island, but not all the precipitation has been snow. it started off as snow this morning, and then we had hours of rain, now the snow is coming down fairly heavily. the reeason we don't have more snow is because of the ranl. when the day started, there was no snow on the ground. there's a lot of snow now, but there's not a ton. it appears the people of staten island are luckier than they thought they would be. we can tell you a lot of activities people have been partaking in to move back into their homes on this block have been postponed because of this weather. we were talking to you a half hour ago about a family hoping to move back into their home, rebuilding it, they have delayed it a little bit. a short time ago, we talked with two of the daughters who live in the home, and we asked them about the luck they've had over the past three months with the weather. >> we're hoping for the best. i don't think it's going to be

as bad as sandy. we're hoping for the best. i still believe we're still going to move in during the week. i feel good about it. >> how hard has it been for your family these last three and a half month? >> it's been pretty hard. a lot of stress, a lot of money because we haven't had any help from anybody. so it's been very stressful. >> a very nice family. they hope to move into their home on monday. it really has been such a tough time though for the people of staten island. i'm just a few blocks away from a story i did after hurricane sandy came through. it was a mother who had been driving tough this area, and the hurricane got very bad. she got out of her car and tried to get into a house that she didn't know who lived in the house, but she wanted to get in a house with her two children for safety, and she couldn't get into the house, and her two children were swept away from her. that just happened a couple blocks away from here. a rough day today in the northeastern united states. fortunately for the people of

staten island, it hasn't been as rough as they thought it might have been, this particular weather event. >> thank goodness, for those of you sitting at home and have the heat, think about the people in staten island, for sure. gary tuchman, thank you so much. we'll come back to you as we talk about the storm, obviously, talking power outages. and just in terms of customers, something like half a million people are without power right now. i talked to a city manager in wur worcester massachusetts, and he's going to talk about the challenges they face in the overnight hours and once the sun begins to come up and when we'll have the better picture as to the damage this thing has done. 2:30 in the morning here on cnn. we appreciate you being with me. we'll be right back. on an ancient burial ground.t [ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises? now you can get all the online trading tools you need without any surprise fees.

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live pictures here, fenway park in boston. truck day in boston on tuesday, which means the red sox are down in beautiful sunny ft. meyers florida, hopefully for your sox fans, the fortuitous timing of the basketball team will be a good omen for 2014. i don't know, but these are pictures of fenway. more than half a million people are in the dark as the blizzard is slamming the northeast. massachusetts is hardest hit by all these power outages. more than 300,000 people have lost electricity thus far across

the state. michael o'brien is the city manager of worcester, massachusetts. >> we're lucky so far with our partners in national grid, we have very few people without power. here in our community, but we do know that in massachusetts, in some of the harder hit areas, particularly the coastline, they are without power. >> what is concern number one for you right now? >> well, concern number one is clearly the heavy snows. coming down somewhere between 1 and 3 inches an hour. with that type of rate, it is all hands on deck to just try to keep our roads open and safe and passable. that and the high winds we're experiencing and the blowing and drifting snow and the threat of trees coming down, which could result in power outages. >> four people who don't have power obviously, they're not sitting and watching tv right now, maybe they hear us on the radio, what is the best piece of advice for folks sitting for in

the cold. >> if they have access to a phone that works that's not bundled with their cable service, to call in and let the national grid, the utility provider know they're without power. that's very important. also reaching out to our customer service center. letting them know that they're without power. and any other issues that may be affecting them at this time, and with that kind of information, we're working hand in glove with the utilities, with our entire city team in our emergency operations center, working on plans to make sure that we keep our community on its feet, and address these issues as they arise. >> michael since i have you, are you in worcester right now? tell me how conditions are where you are? >> well, i am in worcester at the emergency operations center. we're dealing right now with about a foot of snow. heavy snow falling. somewhere between 1 and 3 inches an hour. and considerable winds. i would say ranging from 50

miles per hour to peaks of 35 miles per hour, depending on where you are in the city. >> michael o'brien, worcester city manager. michael, thank you. coming up, we're going to chicago back in with karen. she's in the weather center. she's watching all of the new numbers coming in as we're looking at the live pictures of our team driving through the quiet, eerie streets of boston. round two of the snow coming your way in boston. karen's up next. now find the most hard core driver in america. that guy, put him in it. what's this? [ male announcer ] tell him he's about to find out. you're about to find out. [ male announcer ] test it. highlight the european chassis, 6 speed manual, dual exhaust, wide stance, clean lines, have him floor it, spin it, punch it, drift it, put it through its paces, is he happy? oh ya, he's happy! [ male announcer ] and that's how you test your car for fun. easy.

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so we are coming up on the 3:00 a.m. hour east coast time. look at these pictures because i tell you just in the last couple hours i have been sitting here talking to you, this is, you can't tell, this is manhattan. little by little, these buildings have been disappearing. talk about very low, zero visibility. that's the scene in manhattan at this hour. a quick reminder, the storm is officially a fatal storm. there was a 74-year-old man who was hit after a young woman was driving in poughkeepsie new york. hit him on the side of the road because she lost control of her vehicle, apparently, because of the snowing conditions. so one fatality reported there. let's talk a little bit more about who's getting hit the

worst right now. boston getting ready for round two. >> yes, and we have been watching this. the storm system came together this afternoon. that's when the heavy snow started in boston. it is now just kind of paralleling the coast, but then will gradually make its way further out into the atlantic. i want to point out one thing to you. that is you may be able to see it. it's difficult for even me to see, but kind of this brighter white shaded area e extending right along that i-95 corridor. that's the next burst we're talking ability. meaning that's where some heavier snowfall amounts can be felt, but it's on the back side. as this pulls away, if it holds together, it's going to produce another burst of snow in boston. then you really do start to taper off, rather dramatically. so about mid-morning, maybe late morning hours, we're going to see a very, very different set of circumstances in the northeast and new england, but i want to show you, we have a

producer julian. he's been driving around since about 2:00 this afternoon. these are live pictures that you're looking at. he's driving around boston, just describing. driving, trying to see how things are looking. and well, on his windshield, not so bad, but those streets, those sidewalks are very treacherous. not just there. the railways, the interstates, the airport. they're all being impacted. on top of that, hundreds of thousands of people in that northeastern corridor are without power. now, just to let you know, some people have infants, some people need medical equipment, so if the power goes out, this becomes a different dynamic as well. you can't really travel. there's a state of emergency. that's taking place, so very difficult scenario taking place. how much snow has boston gotten? brooke, we're comparing this to 1978. right now, they have seen about 2 feet. back in '78, it was 27.1.

will they beat that? right now, they are on par to meeting or beating that record. not that that means anything in particular other than this is a pretty devastating storm. >> do we know, let me quickly ask you, do we know how much longer the snow will be falling? >> as i mentioned, over the next couple hours, the burst moves through and then we'll really see it start to taper off. so we're looking at another, let let's see, eight hours or so, but not those 2 and 3 inch snowfall amounts per hour. it's going to be on the order of maybe half an inch or less than that. but the wind is also problematic there as well. so yeah, we're not finished. so about midday tomorrow, we can really start to get out and check and see what's going on. >> okay, karen. you mentioned julian cummings, our producer who has been navigating the streets of boston for us. we're going to talk to julian on the other side of the break because he's going to show us

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back here live as we're coming up on the 3:00 a.m. hour here, as boston is about to get walloped by round two of snow. we talked so much about massachusetts. rhode island, the snow already more than a foot deep. it will continue falling here as karen was saying, for the next, she was estimating maybe six, seven, eight hours. poppy harlow has beenen the heart of providence, rhode island, which she's reporting is in a virtual lockdown. >> there's a restaurant, a tall hotel. can't see it anymore. that's the change in the last half hour. the pellets that ali and jason are feeling are coming right at us. there goes my hat. i'm sure cnn will get me another one. it's white-out conditions here. this is wet snow because it's 34

degrees, and that's the huge problem. that why you have 87,000 customers in rhode island alone without power. because the snow is building up on the power lines. it's bringing them down. we just talked to the mayor's representative. he told us in providence alone, they have had 60 trees of downed trees or power lines. they have 120 vehicles on the road allod here in providence. they closed the entire i-95 corridor down about five, six hours ago. they haven't done that since the great blizzard of '78. they made it at 5:00 illegal for any cars to be on the road. this is why we're standing in the center of providence, downtown, complete white-out and it's going to be like this at least through 6:00 a.m. >> look at all that snow. poppy harlow, thank you. julian cummings, i'm coming to you right now. you're on the phone with me, as you have been driving the streets of boston since, what, last 12 hours off and on, since we talked at 2:00 this afternoon. look at all the snow. here's what i don't see in the

picture, my friend, cars. no cars. >> yeah, there are no cars on the road, but emergency vehicles and some plows, and pretty much us. we are trying to navigate our way around. it's been pretty icy out here. there's a lot of people walking. you're going to see our shot shortly. people walking in the streets. i guess taking available of the fact there's no cars in the roads. pretty dicy out here, actually, driving around. >> here are the people. who are these people? just walking around? >> yeah, i think there's a lot of stragglers who come out and look at the snow and realizes there's no way to get back home. >> i know you have been in a car for many, many hours. have you had a chance to stop and talk to anyone in boston? how are they feeling about this? are they enjoying the snow? do they feel prepared? what are they telling you? >> we have gotten out, we have spoken to people. i went into a store briefly, and the store owner asked me, are

they allowing cars on the road? i can't get home. i said, you have to be careful, i don't think they are. he's going to be spending the night in his store, the corner convenience store, so there are a lot of people who are stranded here. >> what about plows, julian? have you seen plows out and about tonight? >> there are plows out and about. less and less in that department. they are kind of falling behind, i would say, but it's not because of lack of trying. it's just because there's so much snow falling. we were wondering at one point, we realized we were in the system of snow so bad, it's just constant wherever we are. >> and i'm looking, it looks like some of the streets are kind of -- how icy is it right now? can you tell? >> yeah, it's very icy. we're trying to go as slow as possible, but we don't realize we're actually accelerating more

than we need to to get moving and jumping forward. we're trying our best to keep it in order, but i wouldn't recommend anybody follow suit. but we do have -- i'm seeing a skier in front of us coming up. stay with us, you can get a little closer here. a little bit of a delay on our shot, it's mobile, but we see -- >> cross country skier. look at that. first greenwich, connecticut. now a guy cross country skiing at 3:00 in the morning in boston. hey, why not, i suppose. let's just stay on this for a minute. here they go. off the side of the street. i suppose, if you have nothing better to do and want to take advantage of the snow and have skis collecting dust, right? here's another one. can you talk to them, roll doon your window? let's do this on the fly. >> let's try to talk to them. let's see if they can -- i don't think our mike is going to pick it up.

>> how are you doing? you know, brooke, i don't think this is going to work on the fly. it's a little tough for us. but sorry about that. we tried wrfrb. >> okay, julian. thank you. we'll come back to you. maybe we'll give you a minute. you can talk to some of these guys who are out there. >> we can get them. hey, we're with cnn. >> how is it going? >> good, how are you? >> good. wicked good weather. >> wicked good weather, ihe told us. >> wicked good. >> they said finding some skating in the area. what made you guys go out and ski tonight? >> adventure. >> they're looking for an adventure.